Color has the ability to communicate, to please, to excite, and to engage. For example, color makes a difference—often a dramatic difference—in photographs, graphics, layouts and the like. Getting color right early in a workflow, and keeping it right to the end, is increasingly critical in our fast-paced, deadline-driven digital world.
For each device in the workflow, the same combination of numerical color values will yield a different color. For example, a single pixel where R=128, G=128 and B=128 should produce a completely neutral gray tone. On some display devices, this gray will look warm, or reddish. On other devices it will look cool or bluish. These inherent disparities make it difficult to render the colors of an image on differing devices with consistency, accuracy and predictability. Additionally, they make it difficult to render colors of an image on a single display device over time as that display device changes over time. Furthermore, in some cases the content being displayed encompasses a set of colors beyond which the display can represent accurately. In these cases, it is important that the out-of-gamut colors be represented as faithfully as possible on the display.
Photographers, designers and more increasingly, everyday users, are frequently dismayed when they print an image and the color is wildly contrary to what was displayed on their computer screen. These disruptive surprises cost time and money and increase user frustration.